


Sculpt

by Qzil



Series: SPN Rarepair Bingo [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consensual Violence, F/M, Scarification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 19:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5261141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qzil/pseuds/Qzil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She stiffens at the first touch of the blade on her skin, but sighs happily and relaxes into the feeling as Tom digs deeper and begins moving. She has a higher pain tolerance than a human, and a high pain tolerance even for an angel. That was the first thing that had attracted her demon to her, when he’d found her on the side of the road wearing a crown of broken glass and her legs shattered under her after Castiel had left her there for dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sculpt

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the spnrarepairbingo square 'Tom/Hael'

The only thing that Hael truly knows, when it comes to the human world, is art. She’d been an artist for thousands of years before humanity had risen, using the sea and land to shape things into the earth and leave her mark on her father’s creation, making beautiful things that humans would admire for generations to come. 

She also knows that practice makes perfect. She hadn’t made a perfect mountain or canyon the first time she’d tried it. She’d practiced for decades upon decades to perfect the art of shaping earth and directing waterways. She also knows that you never stop practicing, not really. 

Which is why she allows Tom to practice on her. 

In her opinion, torture is simply a different form of art, one that Tom’s kind excels in. In fact, she thinks that his kind is even better at it than hers. 

Angels generally do not like to torture other angels, or human beings, do not like to cut into their bodies and transform them into something entirely new. 

But demons do, and demons are good at it, at transforming human bodies into something else, at taking human souls and twisting and molding them better than even the finest sculptor could. 

She is not human, and she does not have a soul, but she does have a human body that she despises. Her true form is inhuman and sprawling and infinitely larger than anything the human or demonic eye could comprehend.  Her human form is small and stifling and ugly. Even Tom’s true form is better, twisted and corrupted though it is. 

So she allows him to dig into her, to change her, if only for a few moments. Her angelic healing will repair her vessel until it is once again shiny and new. 

Hael strips and lies facedown on the cold, metal table while Tom hums in the background. She can hear him arranging his knives, can hear the soft clink of metal hitting metal and clothing rubbing over blades as he cleans them. Then there is the feeling of her demon gently brushing her coal-black hair to the side so it hands off the edge of the table, out the way of blood and skin. 

His warm lips press against the back of her neck. She can smell the sulfur coming off of him; can feel the claws of his true form pressing against her skin. She shivers at the feeling. 

“Are you ready?” Tom whispers. Hael nods against the table. Her demon never tells her what they’re doing in their sessions, in order to surprise her. Sometimes he’ll open her up and break her bones to arrange her differently. Sometimes she’ll come away missing limbs or muscles or ribs. Sometimes he’ll open her up, rip out her insides, and put them back in a different order before he sews her back up, leaving her the same outside but completely different under the skin. 

“I know you miss your wings,” Tom continues, stroking the skin of her back. “So I thought I’d fix that.”

She stiffens at the first touch of the blade on her skin, but sighs happily and relaxes into the feeling as Tom digs deeper and begins moving. She has a higher pain tolerance than a human, and a high pain tolerance even for an angel. That was the first thing that had attracted her demon to her, when he’d found her on the side of the road wearing a crown of broken glass and her legs shattered under her after Castiel had left her there for dead. 

His movements are usually quick and practiced, Tom having learned long ago that the only way to really cause her pain is through surprise. But today he moves slowly, leisurely, cutting away portions of her skin in a pattern that she cannot figure out from her position on the table. She feels hot blood bubble up and flow freely over her pale skin to pool on the table under her, and winces when the small sucking sound of flesh parting from flesh reaches her ears.

Tom makes a small sound behind her and drops a thin strip of flesh on the table near her head. The skin curls in around itself, stained red on one side and impossibly pale on the other. She feels Tom dab at the wound with something before he inserts his knife again. The pile of skin on the table next to her grows larger and larger as he works, each one thin and long and curling. 

They’ve done skinning hundreds of times, with some sessions more extreme than others. He’d taken everything from her, once, leaving her vessel completely exposed to the world around it, held together only by her grace. It had taken months for the skin to grow back completely. She still thought that he had it, somewhere, the single large piece of her. 

But this is different. It hurts, yes, but the pain is nothing compared to the other things that they have done. And he is gentle with her, murmuring soothing nonsense into her ear while he works. Tom pauses every few minutes to press a gentle kiss to the back of her neck or head, or strokes her shoulder in a reassuring way. 

The longer it goes on, the more the pain creeps in, and Hael finds herself squirming on the table. Tom stops and moves to the front of it, putting a finger under her chin to make her look at him. His eyes are demon black, as they usually are during their meetings. 

“I need you to sit still,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Maybe you should get the belts,” she suggests. They’ve made several sigil-covered belts over the time that they’ve known each other that trap her power in order to keep her still while he cuts into her, or in order to make her heal more slowly. 

“I think you can take it. I’ll be gentle,” he replies. “Just sit still and let me work. Be a good canvas, remember?”

Hael nods. “I’ll be a good canvas.”

And she has always been a good canvas, has always been open to whatever her demon wants to do to her. She knows that it is foolish, that demons cannot be trusted. They’re liars, all of them, and she knows that Tom would jump at the first opportunity to kill her. But he can’t, not without an angel blade, so she is safe for now. 

Besides, she reasons with herself, her brother has a demon that he trusts, that he loves and that loves him back, so why can’t she have one as well? She does not love Tom, of course. She does not know how. She is certain that he does not love her, either, not the in the human way. 

But she knows that he loves cutting into her body, knows that he loves the art he makes on her skin or inside of her. She loves it, too. So that is something, she supposes, the building blocks of what could transform into true feelings, maybe, if she can even have them. 

Hael squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lower lip to prevent small sounds of pain from escaping from her throat. Tom only shushes her and keeps cutting into her, pushing his knife into her flesh again and again, sending waves of pain coursing through her back and into her body, until she can feel them in her true form. 

Gasping, Hael automatically tries to buck him off and run, instinctually trying to get away from harm to her true self. But Tom only pushes his fingers into the wounds on her back, sending her sprawling back onto the table in pain. 

“Sit. Still,” Tom orders. When Hael moves her head, she can see that he’s somehow found her angel blade, and is using it to skin her. “Hael, this is very delicate work.”

She whimpers, and for the first time since she met her demon, she is afraid. 

Leather wraps itself around her throat and digs into the delicate skin there, and she can feel the sigils in the belt working, tamping down her power until she is no stronger than a human. She struggles to draw air into her lungs, and feels tears well in her eyes when Tom wraps two more belts around her wrists and ties her to the table. 

“I won’t hurt you,” Tom soothes. “Trust me.”

Hael relaxes against the table, but shakes her head. “I don’t.”

“You do,” he argues. “You wouldn’t be letting me do this if you didn’t.”

Still, Hael feels her heart galloping in her chest as Tom digs into her back once against with the angel blade. Blood and grace leak out of her as one, blue light spiraling toward the ceiling as hot blood runs down her side. Tom moves faster now, having found his rhythm, and hums some song to himself that she does not know. 

“I’m finished,” he declares, dropping a final strip of skin on the table next to her. The pile is large, larger than she expected, but each strip is thin and long. “I’m going to take the belts off and give you back your angel blade. Then I’m going to get the mirror so you can see what I did.”

He undoes the belts around her wrists and neck. Hael rubs at her throat absently and can feel bruises forming under her skin that will no doubt be dark and ugly in a few hours. She sits up, trembling, and prepares to flee when Tom comes back into the room with the large rolling mirror. 

“Look,” he requests. Hael turns around and does, glancing over her shoulder to see her own reflection, and she gasps. 

He’s given her back her wings. 

Her back is red and angry, and streaked with blood, but he’s carved out her skin in the pattern of two large, curling wings that flow down her back nearly to her buttocks. Some of the lines are crooked, no doubt from her squirming, but most are straight and perfect. They’re not as beautiful as her real wings, they don’t even come close, but they are wings, and they are for her. 

“They’re beautiful,” she breathes. “But they won’t stay.”

“Actually, they might,” he says. “Since I used your angel blade. They might scar over and stay, so you’ll have wings. For as long as you’re in this body, anyway.”

Tom playfully lowers his head to her back and licks one of the open wounds, causing her to squeal. He grabs her around the waist when she tries to jump away and presses a kiss to the side of her neck. 

“Besides, we’ll just do it again until it sticks,” he promises. “You know that art takes time.”

Hael rolls her eyes and sinks back against him. It sends pain jolting through her back, but she ignores it. 

He’s carved into her with her angel blade, has permanently marked her vessel with his art. She can, quite literally, trust him with her back. He’s given her wings to keep with her in her human form, a bit of angelhood while she is stuck on Earth and her true home is closed to her. 

It isn’t love, not yet. But she thinks that, given time and trust, it could be.


End file.
